


stages of reflection

by ConvenientAlias



Series: Bad Things Happen Bingo (Whump Fics) [10]
Category: Marco Polo (TV)
Genre: 5+1 Things, Angst, Canonical Character Death, F/F, F/M, Gen, Reflection, literally reflections
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-06
Updated: 2018-08-06
Packaged: 2019-06-22 16:03:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,229
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15585564
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ConvenientAlias/pseuds/ConvenientAlias
Summary: Five times Mei Lin liked what she saw in a mirror, and one time she didn't.





	stages of reflection

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Alexandria (heartfullofelves)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/heartfullofelves/gifts).



1.

Mei Lin and Jia Sidao are too poor to afford a proper mirror. They do own one metal pot. Mei Lin is the one to cook meals in it usually, and she is also the one to keep it clean. Jia Sidao is useless around the house. He’ll only do what he considers to be man’s work, but he’s not old enough or strong enough to get a real job, and the housework is never up to his standards. So Mei Lin cooks, and Mei Lin cleans. She can hardly ever get the pot clean enough to catch her reflection in it, but when she can it makes her happy.

She is nervous, the first time she covers her face with white powder and paints her lips carefully with rouge. All the girls she’s seen do this in the streets look very grown up, so much older than her. She is young and though she’s been called good looking by some, she’s been called ugly and sullen and spiteful by others. The rouge and powder works magic on some girls’ faces, but she is afraid it will be different with her own.

The pot is not a good mirror. It distorts things—it first makes her forehead look too big, then her nose and cheeks, and finally her lips and chin. She can’t get an accurate idea of what she looks like (she rarely catches glimpses of herself in real mirrors, which is why she values others’ opinions so strongly). But the rouge does glint red, and when she grins, with her lips huge in the curve of the pot, she thinks the smirk looks properly charming, properly adult. She fixes a small blip on her filtrum, and heads out onto the street.

It is her first time whoring, but she is confident she can do it.

 

 

2.

The emperor’s mirror is very different from a metal pot.

It is made of bronze. It is a magic mirror, and if the light hits it right it becomes transparent and projects an image on the opposite wall. A clever piece. But most of the time it is a normal mirror, and very large. The emperor and his attendants use it when he is dressing, and Mei Lin uses it when she is in the emperor’s room. Which is often.

Some people might call Mei Lin cocky, or even arrogant, overly sure of her own importance and her place in the world. Jia Sidao says as much, or implies it, all the time. But the emperor enjoys Mei Lin’s vanity.

“Mei Lin,” he says, “come here.”

This is before he grows so weak he has to stay in bed all the time, but he is often too lazy to get out of bed nonetheless. She steps away from the mirror, which reflects back her own slim, naked body, and slips into bed by his side.”

“You want me?” she murmurs. “Is there something you require?”

His lips are pressed against his neck and she can feel him smiling. “Just this.”

He is a sweet man, the emperor. Sometimes she thinks he enjoys her presence, her personality and warmth, as much as the sex. He’s claimed so. But she only really believes that on nights like this. Other nights he’ll call her in, fuck her, and then dismiss her. Men will only ever value her as much as her body, no matter what they say. But she does have an amazing body—so the mirror says—so she doesn’t let this worry her over much.

Her hand strays low to the emperor’s groin. “Really nothing you require?”

The emperor laughs.

 

 

3.

Jing Fei is a mirror in her own way.

Mei Lin is not arrogant enough to say that she’s shaped Jing Fei. She’s given the girl hints on how to attract men, how to dress, how to act, but that is all. She has no authority, and certainly she would never consider herself to be Jing Fei’s mentor. The thought is uncomfortable. No, she sees herself in Jing Fei because of how they resemble each other. Their stories are different (Jing Fei, for example, still has parents, and Mei Lin, for example, services the emperor instead of any man who’ll pay her enough) but the similarities still abound.

Other times she sees in Jing Fei things that she herself has put there. Mannerisms that have fallen into Jing Fei’s body language, or turns of phrase that used to be unique to Mei Lin. Mei Lin has pointed these things out before, and Jing Fei usually laughs and says that Mei Lin does the same thing.

“You’ve started painting your eyebrows more angular,” she points out.

Mei Lin denies it.

“You have. And the way you cross your arms…”

“Everyone crosses their arms,” Mei Lin says with a laugh.

Jing Fei crosses her arms at that comment. “Very well, then. You will have your way. I think the master seductress has learned as much from me as I from her.”

Mei Lin smirks. “Oh? Shall we test that?” And she reaches out to the ties of Jing Fei’s robe.

Others notice the closeness between Mei Lin and Jing Fei, and some even find it alluring. The emperor calls them both to service him, once. Only once.

Afterwards he scolds Mei Lin for doting so on Jing Fei. “You cannot be so soft on a low ranked concubine. She is not on your level, my love.”

Mei Lin smiles and agrees to cool some of her affection towards Jing Fei, but she knows it’s really jealousy. When Jing Fei’s in the room, Mei Lin has a hard time paying any attention to a patron, even if that patron is the emperor himself.

She kisses his forehead. “I am sorry for my sentimentality, my lord. I can be over fond.”

Honestly, if she’s overly fond of anyone, it’s him. She should know better than to get attached to any man, even the emperor. Jing Fei, on the other hand…she loves Jing Fei, but she thinks that even if she loved Jing Fei with the strength of a thousand suns, it would not be as much as Jing Fei deserves. That is where the reflection falls short; Mei Lin knows herself to be a wily, slithery creature, tarnished by manipulations and selfishness. She cannot reflect back Jing Fei’s purity or worth. She is pleased enough simply to find that they mingle as much as they do.

 

 

4.

Having the emperor’s child changes Mei Lin’s world.

Politically, of course, it makes a huge difference to her status. The emperor has become more effusive in his praise of her. He gives her lavish presents, and says that she is second only to his wife. As for his wife, the empress dowager, she is wary, but since the child is not a boy, she is still friendly. Sometimes she comes to visit. It is the most she has ever acknowledged Mei Lin’s existence. Wives and concubines are not meant to know each other very well.

Personally, though, Mei Lin thinks she changes even more.

She has seen her identity change in stages. First, “me and Jia Sidao.” Then, “me”, when she realized Jia Sidao, having benefited from her occupation, would not support her back. Then, “me and Jing Fei,” a new and better partnership. Now, though, it is “me and Ling Ling and Jing Fei,” which is more of a family than she has ever had before.

Some nights she holds Ling Ling in her arms and stares in the mirror in her room. She used to look at paintings of mothers with children and feel alienated—it was never something she really wanted. In the mirror she becomes a subject of a painting. She becomes a mother. It is a mode of womanhood she has never known before. She is something different, now, and it should feel wrong, but Ling Ling looks right in her arms, and she feels at peace.

 

 

5.

As the emperor’s strength wanes, Jia Sidao grows ever bolder. His once covert remarks in her direction grow ever more snide. She is the source of all his power—without her, he would be living on the street. But as he once considered himself too good for housework, he now considers himself too good for what he calls “her trade”.

“What will you do when the emperor dies, sister?” he murmurs.

They are alone in her room. He has come by supposedly to visit Ling Ling and pay his respects to one of the emperor’s children. In reality he never pays the girl any attention. He has come to mock Mei Lin instead.

“Do you look forward to the emperor’s death?” she counters.

“Don’t lecture me about reverence,” he says.

“I can teach you any lesson I please,” she says. “You know the emperor favors me more than you.” She leans across the table. “And you know I am smarter than you, Jia Sidao. And I would never be so stupid as to speak what amounts to treason.”

He ignores most of what she said. “Yes, the emperor favors you. I’ll repeat: what will you do when he dies?”

“I will support the empress dowager, and raise my child. I will live in what state the emperor leaves to me.”

“You think he will remember you and provide for you? Your status is not so secure, sister.”

“It matters not. I will live.” She sticks her chin out. Jia Sidao brings out the defiant girl in her; she would have more dignity and surety with anyone else, but he has a way of making her mad. “As you know, I am better at surviving than you, and will live regardless of what may occur. But the emperor will live long yet.”

He scoffs. “You’ll survive by taking new patrons, won’t you?” He puts a hand on her cheek, and she shudders. He is worse than any patron when he touches her. “But you aren’t as beautiful as you used to be, sister, and everyone knows you’re used goods. How do you think you will manage? You can’t imagine you’ll be able to stay in the castle, living like you’re the empress dowager herself.” He leans closer, too close. “After all, you’re only a whore…”

She shoves him away, almost manages to twist his arm behind his back and shove him to the floor and—but he evades her. They are equally matched in martial arts, which is a pity. She’d like to beat him, hurt him. The emperor would forgive her, and as yet he still lives.

She could dissect every last word he said. Tell him her reputation only makes her more desirable, and many still long for her, crave her. Tell her that even should she accept a lower patron there would be no shame—there is no higher to climb, after all, so how could she aspire to better than her current state? But arguing with Jia Sidao is pointless. He never listens, anyway. Never has, never will.

“Out,” she says, “unless you have anything of use to say.”

After he leaves she examines her body in the mirror. It is still fit, still lean and beautiful. She runs a hand through her hair, pulling it through a couple tangles. She will not listen to what he says. All he has to say is babble.

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

+1.

News of the defeat of Xianyang arrives in Cambulac with a triumphant parade. In Ahmad’s house, Mei Lin stares into the mirror.

Her daughter is alive, yes. Her daughter is alive.

Her brother is dead. The empress dowager is likely dead too. And Jing Fei, she knows, must be long dead at Jia Sida’s hands. She has not mourned yet, for no news has arrived. But it may never arrive, and the postponed mourning is a heavier burden than tears might be.

“You wanted this,” she whispers at her reflection. “You wanted this.” She’d made a deal with the Mongols, after all, helped them with an invasion plan even if it wasn’t this one. And when she’d waited with anxiety to hear news of the battle, she’d felt secretly vindictive and hoped she might hear of Jia Sidao’s death. He kicked her out, he hurt her daughter, he killed her lover. She’d wanted him dead.

She’d wanted her people to lose, and be trampled, and die, with a bitter passion. Now, hearing her wish had come true, the passion faded and left her hollow.

She traces a hand around her face in the reflection. She does not break the glass. Ahmad would be angry. And she will not make her captors angry—after all, she has always been one to protect her position. She has always been that selfish bitch.

The noise from the streets echoes in, but it is not loud enough to call her to the window. All she sees in the mirror is a tired woman, not the pitiful monster she has been. But at least it does not lie to her in more extravagant ways, show her beauty, show her sex appeal, show her remnants of Jing Fei. Jing Fei is dead, and so, she thinks, is she.

The image in the mirror blurs with tears as the weight of mourning slowly sinks off her shoulders and into her heart.

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the Bad Things Bingo prompt, "Mei Lin, rage against the reflection." I'm always here for Mei Lin angst! Also at this point Jing Fei/Mei Lin is just my headcanon, too late to turn back lols.  
> Comments are always welcome :) or come talk to me on tumblr at convenientalias.


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